Brief: How do you test products that are disruptive in a setting that gives you confidence to pursue a piece of innovation or not, without losing your IP and still allowing you to learn and iterate as you go?

Method

The Mix was commissioned by one of the world's largest alcoholic beverage companies to come up with a new process for testing disruptive new to world concepts. We created xLAB* - an immersive drinking experience, designed to replicate a bar experience, whilst allowing us to conduct research experiments to help us assess the performance of concepts.

We took over different private spaces in 4 different global cities (Nairobi, London, Lagos, Madrid) building bespoke pop up bars in each, open with real life consumers over 3 nights.

Each space was screened with multiple security measures to ensure IP is protected. Once admitted, visitors were able to make their own selections from the products available in exchange for tokens to understand the value exhange.

Each bar was fully rigged with cameras and microphone, and the bar team were trained researchers - to allow us to observe how people behaved and how they enjoyed the new products.

In each city, over 100 people came into the pop up space across the 3 nights we were open.

Outcome

A fast, iterative and interactive way of testing new to world concepts that is also completely secure. Fast-tracking of several promising projects through to gate 3 in a significantly shorter time.